Rick Welts lands with the Warriors, one more example of a total-team cultural overhaul

-I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. If you know the Warriors’ past inner-workings, it was difficult to miss.

In fact, a Warriors employee said it to me during the Rick Welts introductory presser earlier today, just as I was thinking it, too:

The difference in tone and substance from the insular old team president (Robert Rowell) to the savvy, quick-witted, league-supported new one (Welts) is almost impossible to overstate.

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The past: Paranoia and defensiveness.

Now: I don’t know how Welts will work with Lacob/Guber and the rest of this calvalcade of strong front-office execs, but we can pretty much guarantee that the culture of the Warriors won’t be about paranoia.

From Welts’ deft handling of his coming out as the highest-ranking openly gay sports executive in the U.S. to every other issue he has faced and will face, I don’t think paranoia is in the offing here.

In fact, the new front office is trending towards quite enlightened (if crowded).

Lacob won’t announce that comparison exactly in that way, but I can bet he’s thinking it.

That’s the main thing to conclude from the Warriors’ latest splashy hire and splashy introduction–yep, they’ve had four big headline-making introductions since the final days of last season (Jerry West, Bob Myers, Mark Jackson and now Welts).

There sure has been a ton of action. So much action–without games or practices–that I’m suffering from some GSW splashy-presser fatigue, and afterwards Lacob admitted he’s weary from all the work he’s done, too.

The way Lacob describes the hierarchy: He and Guber at the top, advised by the executive board (with Jerry West as a member).

Welts reports to Lacob, as does the basketball operation (currently headed by Larry Riley).

The CFO reports to both Welts and Lacob.

All other business-side departments (marketing, sales, community relations, etc.) report to Welts.

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Got it?

OK, that’s enough. I’ve got to get to the Giants game tonight. Speaking of the Giants..

At the very bottom of my talk with Lacob, note his volunteered use of the Giants’ success in business and on the field as a model for what he wants to do with the Warriors.

That certainly won’t slow speculation that the Warriors plan to be in San Francisco at some point, possibly right next-door to AT&T Park.

If you’re keeping track, and I know some of you are (as am I), here are the Warriors’ big pressers in the Lacob Era, and where they’ve been held…

So Welts’ event makes it a 4-3 Oakland advantage. So far. Until the Warriors hire David Stern as a consultant. By next Tuesday at the latest. (I’m joking on the Stern thing. I think.)

——JOE LACOB interview transcript, with the first question not asked by me/

-Q: Was Welts’ public coming out an issue at all when you were discussing this hire?

-LACOB: The truth is, we just wanted to hire the single best guy we could to be the president of the Golden State Warriors and the rest of it is what it is and people react however they react. And I can’t control that.

-Q: Is there a chance of a positive marketing situation maybe with this area–did you think about that?

-LACOB: No. We really didn’t discuss it. I mean, we had a frank and open discussion about the subject between ourselves and with Rick. But as far as how it affects marketing or anything like that, no.

Honestly, all I care about and all Peter cares about is that we run a great organization. And we haven’t had a great organization. We’ve had a lot to fix.

And so right now… this is the guy that can come in and make it work. Hire all the right people. We can’t be hiring every single person in the organization.

He’s going to hire the rest of the people, marketing and so on, fill out the team. And I know he knows how to do it, and do it really well.

If you look at Phoenix, in particular, over the last nine years, it’s one of the best-run basketball teams in the NBA, from a business standpoint. They do very, very well. I think they’re second or third in sponsorships in a market that isn’t even that… large of a market and has had its problems.

He’s just a very, very capable man.

-Q: What’s the hierarchy here–you, Peter, exec board, Welts, basketball ops… how is that going to work? Is basketball ops going to report to him Welts at all?

-LACOB: No, no. He’s going to run the business operations and basketball reports to me.

-Q: And the CFO?

-LACOB: CFO will be a dotted line, (reporting to Welts) and I, both. Think of me as… I’m essentially the acting chairman. I’m not here every day. This is the way a lot of businesses run.

Basically, I’m here to help (Welts) from the business side run this thing. He’s the guy that runs it on a day-to-day basis. I didn’t want to be doing that, but obviously I have been doing that.

-Q: You’ve liked doing it, right?

-LACOB: No. You’re wrong about that. It’s a lot of work. A tremendous amount. This has been a major turn-around and this is really not what I want to be doing. I want to be focusing on a lot of other things.

We needed this. We needed a president day-to-day on business operations and that’s what he’s going to be doing. He’s goingi to be running marketing and sales and community relations and all those things. Sponsorships.

-Q: Basketball ops reports directly to you?

-LACOB: Yes, that’s correct. By the way, that’s not dissimilar from what goes on in many NBA organizations, if not most.

-Q: You’ve made a lot of the business hires–CFO, some of the others…

-LACOB: Well, there was nobody else to do it, quite frankly, since Mr. Rowell left in June. We’ve had to make some changes at the highest levels. You have to be able to function.

So we did hire a CFO. I didn’t want to go so fara as to hire everybody out, so then he wouldn’t be bringing his people in. Peter and I both really felt it was necessary that Rick or whoever the new president was going to be could come in and bring in his own people, to the extent that he needed to do that.

But we really couldn’t wait. We didn’t know when that was going to happen…

We got very lucky here that Rick Welts became available. I don’t know how else to say it. He was on our shortlist from the beginning as the one of the top two or three guys, but he was unavailable, so we were looking other places.

And then it was a rather stunning move when he announced he was resigning, and I got an immediate call from Robert Sarver. I said I’m going to jump all over this.

And I knew of Rick of course certainly through the NBA. Made a whole bunch of calls. Called Steve Kerr, who used to work there with him. Called the NBA, David Stern. Called Adam Silver. Just went right through it.

Everybody was incredibly positive. They said this was an amazing opportunity. Talk about luck, this is a guy who wants to live in Northern California. I said, couldn’t be a better fit.

So we jumped into a meeting, and I think the big meeting was really last Monday. Found him to be a fantastic guy for this opportunity.

-Q: Is Welts part of the big-picture planning now? You’re a big-picture guy, so is Peter, how does Welts fit into a lot of big-picturing going on here?

-LACOB: He has an amazing amount of experience. Practical experience. He has been at the NBA. I don’t know if you know this, he was the guy who started the NBA sponsorship department. He was the first guy.

When Rick went to the NBA, I think there were like 30-somewhat employees. And I don’t know how many there are now, over a 1,000.

He has an incredible amount of experience at the team level. He has an incredible amount of experience at the league level. And we’re going to draw on all that.

[EDIT]

He’s going to run the business side of this operation.

-Q: And decisions like hiring and firing GMs and coaches…

-LACOB: I’ll repeat, he understands and he’s great with it, it’s the way it ran in Phoenix… the basketball side will report to me.

-Q: You talk about the culture you want to create… what was the culture you inherited here?

-LACOB: I really want to talk about the future going forward, as opposed to the past.

Suffice to say, like a lot of organizations that have had the same people involved for over a decade, in this case, as many as 20 years, it gets stale. It’s not working properly.

We came in and had to change a lot of aspects about the culture. Not only on the basketball side, but on the business side. It was pretty much throughout the organization.

People ask me, well, what have you been doing this summer? Because of the… other activities…

-Q: The L-word (lockout).

-LACOB: Whatever. But I say, you have no idea, this has been the busiest I’ve ever been. From June ’til now, it’s just been immense. A lot to do.

I’m actually pretty tired right now and I think getting Rick in at this point in time is just a godsend. Really, really excited about it.

I can’t wait, and Peter can’t wait–we’re going to be the three guys at the top of this organization, essentially, that are making the key decisions and running it, along with whoever’s at the top of the basketball side, Larry Riley in this case.

That’s the guys who are going to run this organization.

-Q: Can you exhale and take a step back now?

-LACOB: I think so. This allows me and Peter to focus on some other really important issues at the top. And we still have a lot of work to do. This team has not won. We need to win. And we need to develop a consistent winning record and attitude.

We want to get out in the business community and the business side of things and we want tobe what the Giants are today. They’ve done a fantastic job.

There’s no reason the Warriors can’t be that. And so there’s a lot of work to do and it’s going to take a number of years to do everything we want to do here, to have a first-class orgnanization throughout, basketball and business.

So what do all these guys do for the next 13 months while there’s no hoops?

robert rowell

strong front office execs? larry riley, anybody?

look, the W’s are making changes, and since there’s no ball to play, that’s about all they can do now is align the FO. but the bottom line is that there needs to be a competent TEAM out on the floor if and when games to resume. the man to assemble that team is not larry riley. he’s a terrible judge of talent, an awful manager of the roster and seems incapable of acquiring players based on need.

but i do like the current hire of welts, and i am glad for the expansion of scouting and the nbadl. however, the jury is still out as to whether this team will actually be a winner. (ever)

Sonny Crockett

I hope Lacob sees first hand all the Giants bandwagoners jumping ship, as well as Niners fan’s selling away their home field advantage to opposing fans for a quick buck — and realizes how much better East Bay fan’s are…

Lgo

It’s simple, the team will lose the dedicated and loud fans if they leave the East Bay. They’ll get the yuppie crowd/money in SF, but not the passion.

Boom

Learn how to properly use an apostrophe before you get on your high horse, Sonny. I haven’t seen a whole lot of A’s fans at the Coliseum the last 10 years. How many local blackouts have the Raiders had in the past decade?

Fred Sanford

Exactly Boom. The A’s used to draw 30K+ a game. Even earlier this decade they broke the two million mark in attendance. Now what do they average…17-18K per game? Shall we bring up the Raiders attendance figures too?

If Sonny wants to say that Warriors fans don’t jump ship then he has a point. But if he wants to invoke baseball and football teams into the equation – and he did say “East Bay” fans – then his argument completely falls apart.

fanfor life

Sonny–you living in outer space? East Bay fans do a terrific
job of supporting A’s and Raiders–correct? When was the last
season A’s drew more than Giants? Ever?

Lgo

@fanfor life Before At&t and the Coliseum was made into a football venue, the A’s outdrew the Giants on a regular basis. Look it up. I imagine you’re a new baseball fan lured in by animal hats, but the facts are out there.

Steve

Please stop with this East Bay-West Bay nonsense. Fans of the Bay Area’s sports teams live and come from all parts of Northern California. I was born and raised in the East Bay and have never lived anywhere else in all my many years here in NoCal. My allegiance in MLB? The Giants. In fact, have never even been to an A’s game in Oakland.

Kyle

This guy sounds like a great hire.

If the Warriors move to San Francisco, they’ll have the same fans they have now. There’s only 1 Bay Area basketball team (for now).

12′s

Tim, how come you never ask him about Fitz? The W’s have made what seems like every good front office move this off-season. Only thing left to do is get rid of fitz and I know the curse gets lifted and we are back in the playoffs.

Slimman

Replace Fitz with Greg Papa and pull off a miracle trade of our garbage for Dwight Howard and we will all know once and for all that there is a God.

Cy5

Tim– rumor is there is going to be an Amnesty Clause in the new CBA allowing teams to buyout 1 player with no salary cap ramifications. Who do the Warriors buy out- Biedrins or Lee?

FoRealNeil

I like this hire a lot based on Welts’ resume.
Now, where are the people who questioned the Jeremy Lin signing as a marketing ploy for Asians? Surely the large gay population in the Bay Area will all of a sudden become basketball fans and attend games now.

Welts as an openly gay front office person in the NBA…that’s as common as an Asian American in the NBA. Personally I like the direction of the Warriors and liked the Jeremy Lin signing (who also had a good body of work in college and HS) and this new move. It’s just interesting to see the difference in responses.

blingfaith

Please finish the housecleaning and get rid of Fitz! We deserve better!

Poundwater

East Bay. San Francisco. Whatever. Just get the team away from its current location. Even downtown Oakland would work for me. I just think it’s a damn shame that all the benefits a stadium can bring are being completely wasted; everyone goes to the O.Co and leaves right after. There’s no restaurants, bars, places to hang out after. The area is lifeless and more than a few would consider it life threatening.

gizzm

trade for Rudy Gay!!!

slamdunk

Well I guess it is nice that Lacob is hiring all of his execs, and he seems to have a full barn, but too bad there may be no season for the execs to work on. Lacob also should make it a clean sweep and dump Larry Riley, especially for his signing David Lee to that outrageous contract. Riley still has the stench of the Cohan regime.